


Bee in a Tree

by suitesamba



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family, First Kiss, Fluff, Jumpers, M/M, rosie's first christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 01:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13112868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: It's their first Christmas back in 221B, and while Sherlock is away for a few days right before the holidays, John buys a tree on a whim and sets about turning his life around once and for all.A bit of angst, a lot of fluff, and the first day of the rest of their lives.





	Bee in a Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Assumes all canonical events occur as depicted in S1-4. Attempts to follow canonical timeline.

The tree was sad – it had likely been cut down in October and shipped in from out of country, and as he’d waited until December 23rd to make his purchase, the selection was slim and the quality of that inadequate selection disheartening. The poor thing stood only four feet tall on tip toes, and listed to one side so severely that he’d had to prop up one leg of the stand with a book to even it all out. And, as they’d never before had a tree at 221B, decorations were ad hoc at best. He hadn’t exactly thought of how he’d get from bare needles to festive décor when he’d bought the tree on a whim on the way home from the clinic – he’d only caught the scent of the trees in passing and found himself transported to a frosty Christmas morning when he was six years old.

Mrs. Hudson had heard him when he came through, and followed him up the stairs with Rosie on one arm and a strand of coloured lights on the other, and really, that should have been enough. Rosie, who’d never remember this Christmas and who would have been perfectly content to tear up handfuls of wrapping paper and open empty boxes, seemed delighted enough with the lights, whether draped on the tree or strung across the floor. And Sherlock wasn’t even here to weigh in on it at all – he’d flown off with Mycroft to Austria four days ago when their father had ended up in hospital while on holiday with Mrs. Holmes. 

With lights on, the tree was more respectable, having the general appearance of a Christmas tree at least. Arranged on a low table, it reached a respectable height, and the uneven base wasn’t even obvious with Sherlock’s favourite dark maroon shirt draped around it. A search of the flat, Rosie balanced on his hip as he pulled open drawers and dug one-handed through cupboards, turned up some ancient sweets in bright foil wrappers, a collection of Rosie’s hair bows and baubles and the perfect little origami swan Molly had given him when he moved back to 221B, a relic from Sherlock’s over-the-top wedding planning. 

With dental floss ties and paperclip hooks, the sweets became Christmas ornaments. He arranged the bows and baubles in the branches then perched the pink swan on top of the tree and took a step back, then another.

It didn’t exactly transform the place. It was still 221B with all the detritus of both a consulting detective and a very small child, cluttered and worn-looking despite the rebuild only months ago. He scooped Rosie up from the floor and, eye level with the mantel, she started an unintelligible conversation with the skull, small hand outstretched toward it, as he regarded the tree critically.

It was missing something.

“Something of Sherlock’s then,” he murmured.

Rosie’s head swiveled to the door expectantly, but no Sherlock appeared. John soon turned up a toy Sherlock had brought home for Rosie – a stuffed bee with burlap wings and a felt body. The fact that it was a cat toy – complete with catnip stuffing and a bell on the exaggerated stinger the perfect size for jamming up a nostril – hadn’t rattled Sherlock an iota. 

“Bee!” squealed Rosie as he balanced the toy in a hollow near the top of the tree.

John shook his head. Despite the fact that he’d tucked the little bee out of sight and out of reach, Rosie was clearly well-acquainted with it.

“Bee in the tree,” John said with a smile.

“Bzzzzzzz,” said Rosie. “Bzzzzzzzz.”

ooOOOoo

John shifted the sleeping child on his lap and reached for his vibrating mobile.

_Another delay. – SH_

Shit. He’d planned to wait up – Mrs. Hudson and Molly and Greg had all come and gone and it was just he and Rosie for the rest of the quiet evening.

_Ah - sorry. Still the weather? Best get a hotel room for the night?_

_Crew change – incoming flight is late. And no hotel - it’s Christmas Eve. – SH_

John glanced around the room, at the wrapped presents under the tree, the shredded wrapping paper, the opened gifts his friends had brought his daughter, the empty wine glasses.

_Yeah. I know. Wouldn’t you rather spend it in a nice bed than at the airport?_

_Hotel beds are not nice. – SH_

John read the implication. _I’d rather be home._

_Neither are planes._

_I’ll wait. – SH_

Stubborn git, John thought. He gathered Rosie up and climbed the stairs to their shared bedroom, changed her into her pajamas by the pale Christmas Eve moonlight, and tucked her in bed. A message was waiting for him when he settled back into his chair a few minutes later.

_I hate Mycroft. – SH_

_Really? Where is he, anyway?_

_Got the last seat on an earlier flight. Did I mention I hate him? – SH_

_You did. Why didn’t you nab that seat?_

_Standby. He got in line ahead of me while I stopped in a shop. – SH_

_Not for cat toys, I hope._

_At the airport, John? – SH_

John smiled. _Well – I’ll leave a light on._

_No plans this evening? – SH_

John crossed his feet on the ottoman and fiddled with the TV remote with one hand. _Rosie’s already sleeping. Molly and Greg and Mrs. H wore her out. She’s getting the hang of opening presents._

_No more princess dresses, I hope. – SH_

_Molly can’t resist._

_Sequins and sparkles contaminate my experiments. – SH_

_She’s a little girl. There are going to be sequins and sparkles._

_She’s a Watson and a Morstan. Gender stereotypes may not apply. – SH_

John stared at his mobile. _She’s a Watson and a Morstan._ Sherlock dropped the words with unapologetic ease. Holding Rosie in front of the mantel, letting her touch the skull’s teeth, poke her finger in an eye socket. Pointing to the photograph of John and Mary on their wedding day. _Your mummy was a complicated woman. I liked her, even though she wasn’t always very nice._

_Leave my gift under the tree. – SH_

_What makes you think I have one?_

_A gift or a tree? – SH_

Either. Both, thought John.

_We’ve never had a tree here for Christmas._

_We’ve never had a child here before either. – SH_

They’re just words. Words strung together to communicate a fact. A subject pronoun – indicating more than one person. A We referring to the two men who live at Baker Street, inhabiting different rooms in an all-but-shared life. One a single parent, the other a … a ….

John’s fingers fumble.

_No. We haven’t, have we? And yeah, Rosie made you something for Christmas. You know where you’ll find it._

There’s a bit of a pause, and it takes Sherlock longer than usual to respond.

_I’ll wait ‘til morning. – SH_

_Text me if you get a hotel._

_I’m only leaving this airport on a plane. – SH_

_Well, text me if you aren’t on that plane by midnight._

_Don’t wait up. – SH_

A few more pleasantries and the conversation quietly dies away, and John pours the bottom of a bottle of wine into a fresh glass and picks up a few stray scraps of paper, then settles into his chair and turns on the television. He finds a Christmas concert of some sort, seasonal church hymns, a children’s choir, soft and sweet. He finishes the wine, then dozes in his chair until he wakes near midnight. The flat is quiet, Sherlock’s bedroom door still open.

He glances at the tree as he carries his wine glass to the kitchen. Three presents left for Rosie to open when Sherlock is home, a gift from Rosie to Sherlock, a stack for Sherlock from Molly and Greg and Mrs. Hudson, and a final gift, in plain green paper, to Sherlock from him.

He unplugs the lights, thinks better of it, plugs them back in again. The rebuilt flat has a sprinkler system – he can live with the risk for one night to give Sherlock a surprise welcome when he walks in the door.

ooOOOoo

Rosie is up before seven, and she babbles at the tree as if she’s never before seen it. Sherlock’s bedroom door is closed, his coat is hanging on the hook by the door, and there are more presents under the tree, including an unwrapped one bundled up in Sherlock’s shirt. It’s a stuffed animal – a bee, of course, he notes with the fondest of smiles. Its belly lights up when he squeezes it, and it makes a soft humming buzz that Rosie instantly repeats, squealing and grabbing the bee by its oversized head. She sucks on an antenna contentedly while he carries her into the kitchen and starts her breakfast and his tea.

Sherlock is still sleeping at nine o’clock, when Mrs. Hudson comes up with a Christmas morning tea tray, complete with plain biscuits for Rosie and Christmas crackers for all. They eat and drink their fill, but save the crackers for when Sherlock can play along.

By ten o’clock, he’s had a holiday call with Harry, and Rosie has fallen asleep on a blanket on the floor.

She’s up by eleven, hungry again, still chewing on the bee’s antenna. John has taken a peek at the new gifts under the tree. A rather large box for Rosie, a medium box for Mrs. Hudson, and a small one for him.

Eleven fifteen and Sherlock’s door opens. He blinks in the muted sunlight, then stumbles into the loo while Rosie squeals and starts a hyper-speed crawl toward the closed bathroom door. Gifts are forgotten, save the new plushie with its sodden antenna, while John makes tea and Rosie watches Sherlock fly the bee around the sitting room.

Sherlock helps her open her final gifts after lunch. The large one turns out to be a beehive shape sorter with slots in the top for the queen, the workers and the drones. It’s finely made and beautifully painted, and John imagines Sherlock shopping in an Austrian village and cannot even fathom the cost of such a work of art. Rosie approves, but contents herself with removing the top and stuffing the plushie into the hive. It’s fitting, and they laugh as Rosie grins at her achievement, and John posts a photo of the stuffed bee’s fat bum sticking out of the hive. Mrs. Hudson returns for the Christmas crackers, and they take a selfie in their silly hats. Sherlock opens his gifts from their friends, and his gift from Rosie –a URL on a slip of paper which turns out to be a ten second YouTube video clip, on continuous loop, of Rosie pointing and squealing at the cat-toy-turned-ornament and _buzzing._

Rosie falls asleep with bee clutched against her tummy, and John carries her up to bed, and when he pads back down the stairs, Mrs. Hudson has gone, and it’s just he and Sherlock, and two smallish boxes under the tree. 

He can’t remember a Christmas quite like this one. He’s never seen a more beautiful tree, a more perfect day to spend inside with the people who populate his life, who’ve salvaged a horrendous year bookended by joy – Rosie’s arrival, and her first Christmas.

“You first,” Sherlock says, passing a wrapped package to John. It fits easily in his hand, and is practically weightless. John smiles his thanks, then lifts the lid and removes the bubble wrap covering.

Bavarian crystal – a rose about to blossom, a red-tinged sun, a crescent moon. 

Rosie. John. Mary.

Or, better said, his daughter, his barely-controlled anger, the waning presence of the woman he had loved. Metaphors from therapy, from life, with only Sherlock missing, but he’s not settled on one for Sherlock, and isn't sure he’ll share it with him if he ever does. 

He runs a thumb over the glass, holds the sun in the palm of his hand. 

“Thank you,” he manages. “They’re – beautiful. Perfect.”

Sherlock gives him a fleeting smile.

“Well, your turn, then,” John says at last with a breath of courage, pressing the green box into Sherlock’s hands and smiling awkwardly. He doesn’t know if Sherlock will understand, or realise without him explaining it all, and he waits while Sherlock opens the box and extracts an off-white scarf with blue and green trim– oatmeal coloured, really – loosely knit in a pattern Molly said was “Flight of the Bumblebees.” He didn’t spend a shilling on it – just lots of thought, and second thoughts, and thirds.

Sherlock fingers the scarf, looks at John, puzzled, but when he lifts it over his head to wrap it around his neck, he pauses, then bends to bury his nose in it. His eyes close, and when he opens them again, they are soft and full of something John can’t name but that takes some of the weariness he’s been carrying from his face.

“Don’t tell me you’ve taken up knitting in your spare time,” he says with a smile as he wraps the scarf around his neck a second time and examines the narrow blue and white stripes on the end. He fingers them, looks at John, and smiles again. “That blue and green atrocity with the yellow trim at the neck.”

“Hated that one in particular, did you?” John asks. He’s not worn his old jumpers for some time – since Mary pretended to chuck them, complaining about a wool allergy he’d always questioned. “And no – Molly did the honours. I just provided the material. I managed to squirrel a few of them away when Mary threatened to burn them. She hated them – pretended to be allergic to wool.”

Sherlock’s eyes are closed again, and the scarf is pulled up around his chin. He looks – unabashedly content. Peaceful. At home.

“Actually – she didn’t really hate them. She did that for me.”

John laughs. “You berk. You … you ….” He reaches out and tugs on the end of the scarf, tightening it around Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock grins. 

“It was the least she could do after I got rid of that awful mustache for her.”

John gives one more tug on the scarf, then releases it and looks down at the box still in his lap.

“Did you mean for me to hang these on the tree?” he asks.

Sherlock shakes his head. “I didn’t mean for you to do anything special with them,” he says. “The shop caught my eye, and I saw the sun hanging in the window and went in to have a closer look.”

Sherlock wears the scarf the rest of the day, and John hangs moon and sun and rose in the window. As the sun sets, it prisms through the glass and the room dances in coloured light, a stained glass tableau of Christmas peace.

When dinner is done, and Rosie is tucked in bed with her beloved bee, John settles in his chair, feet on the ottoman in the warm oatmeal-coloured socks with blue heels and green toes Molly gifted him, and is surprised when Sherlock drapes the scarf around his neck from behind, then wraps it until even the ends are tucked up against his chin.

“Wear it for me for a bit,” he says as he picks up his violin.

John doesn’t protest and doesn’t ask why. He sits there, warmed inside and out, as Sherlock moves to the window, violin in hand. And if he recognizes the Moonlight Sonata, he doesn’t comment. He simply lets the music dance him gently to the end of this very good day.

He drifts off to sleep, but wakes to Sherlock unwrapping the scarf, removing it from John’s neck to drape it over his own shoulders. He hears Sherlock breathe in his scent through the scarf, and tips his head back to look up at him with a tired smile.

“I’ve got a vest or two in the laundry you might like,” he says. “Wore one of them two days.”

He’s looking at Sherlock upside down, and the warm and happy smile stays right there on his face as they lock eyes. The ends of the scarf graze his face and he catches one in his hand and gives a tiny tug. Sherlock begins to bend, but it is the longest journey in the world, and John meets him halfway, takes hold of the other end of the scarf, and pulls him slowly down until their lips meet in an upside down first kiss that is awkward and off-center and every bit as perfect as he once dreamed it could be. 

Sherlock will treasure the scarf always, and give it to John to wear from time to time until his scent once again permeates the woolen strands. With time, and with Sherlock at his side, the angry red sun will diffuse into softer hues of orange and gold, and the light of the crescent moon will fade away into the dawning day. 

Rosie Watson won’t remember her mother, and John will bury her memory with the Afghan sun, the rooftop of St. Barts, the bony bottom of a flooded well. But Sherlock Holmes will not forget her – not what she took away from him, nor what she gave him in the end. Her daughter has her smile, her chin, and carries her name. But she has John’s eyes, and she dances in excitement when Lestrade calls with a case, and will develop a penchant for warm jumpers and high drama. 

As Rosie grows, so too will their Christmas tree. They’ll be handmade glittery pinecones, trinkets from their first trip together to the Spanish shores, and a multi-coloured flight of origami geese. Sherlock will tease John about his obsession with the tree, and will delight in hanging household items on it for John to discover – a cocktail shrimp or two, hung by the tail, a decorative bar of soap, a miniature bottle of ketchup from a room service tray. But they’ll hang the little bee every year, and make a game of finding it in the branches, and the story of that first Christmas tree, and the buzzy bee Rosie chewed on for years, the woolen scarf made from John’s old jumpers, and the crystal suncatchers that still hang in the window, will be told and retold at Christmastime until John can’t be certain what really happened and what Sherlock has inserted over the years. His father might have had a heart attack, or been attacked by a bear, or broken his leg skiing, and he might have wrapped the two of them up in that scarf as soon as he opened it, giving John no choice at all but to kiss him silly.

What he knows – what he’s absolutely certain of when he scours his memory banks as he sits on the floor surrounded by baubles and tangled lights and the foul-smelling shrimp they somehow missed the year before – is that time started again on Rosie’s first Christmas, and that her first Christmas was his first Christmas too.  
_Fin_


End file.
